This is where Josh Turiel deposits his blather about things he's not really qualified to speak of. Those topics typically include technology, politics, professional wrestling, economics, security, business, and parenting.
He owns a small business providing IT support, has a young son, is a card-carrying Bright, serves as an elected official (City Councillor in Salem, MA) and could stand to lose a few pounds. So that's where he's coming from.

Thursday, January 16, 2003

DSL detective work

OK. Here's what happened, it turns out. On Friday the 13th of December, DirecTV DSL announced they were closing - effective 1/16 (but now extended to 1/31). So I immediately looked for alternatives. That night, I called Speakeasy and ordered 768/384 ADSL service from them. Speakeasy uses Worldcom to provide that particular service option.

All went according to schedule, until the 28th. That day, Worldcom notified Speakeasy that they didn't have the ability to "hot-swap" service over - the line would have to be cancelled and re-ordered. After talking over the options with the Speakeasy sales rep, we cancelled and then re-ordered a circuit through Covad (1.5/128 ADSL). Covad could hot-switch, but I was down anyway - the CO swap was performed on Friday the 3rd, and I didn't get the new CPE until Wednesday the 8th.

So on the 8th, the modem arrived, I plugged it in (I'd already put the new addresses into my DNS and the router), and was immediately up and running. Piece of cake.

This past Monday morning, the line was turned off. So I've been dead since then. After much sleuthing, I figured out the problem, since Speakeasy, Covad, and Verizon combined couldn't do it. They key turned out to be in a Covad trouble ticket I probably shouldn't have had access to.

Covad had noted in a ticket update this morning that a second CLEC had been given the line. Nobody could find out who, because Verizon isn't allowed to give that information to another CLEC. So I was browsing my case history, and the following question occurred to me:

"What if Worldcom never processed the order cancellation?"

So, after a phone call to Speakeasy, they called Worldcom and found that it was indeed the case. Somehow, Worldcom never got the cancellation order, so when they saw the line free up they put their claim in. And the cutover was done Monday.

That's what went wrong. Anyhow, after we confirmed it, one of Speakeasy's senior techs took over the process of getting my line untangled. It will probably take until at least tomorrow. Oh well. Meanwhile, I have an order in for AT&T Broadband to put a cable modem back in, just in case this doesn't get sorted out quickly enough.